Thursday, May 25, 2006

When Naru met Hodo

One of the questions that kept nagging at me regarding the China-Japan high school student exchange program (here and here) was how the Chinese government was going to find enough high school age Japanese speakers amongst the children of politically safe families.

What was I thinking?

Today's Asahi Shimbun (which last week printed an editorial welcoming the students - the Japanese title was "Yokoso, Nihon e") provides the obvious answer to the language conundrum:

Courtesy: Asahi Shimbun

When today's Chinese and Japanese teenagers get together, they communicate by speaking in English.

Sugawara no Michizane and Natsume Soseki must be turning in their graves.

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